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                  <p><small><a name="what_is_zip_file_format"></a>PeaZip
is a free cross-platform file zipper utility that provides an unified
portable GUI for many Open Source technologies like 7-Zip, FreeArc,
PAQ, UPX... free alternative to WinRar, WinZip </small><small>and
similar
proprietary software</small><small>.<br>
- Create 7Z, ARC, BZ2, GZ, *PAQ, PEA, QUAD/BALZ, TAR, UPX, WIM, XZ, ZIP
files<br>
- Open and extract (unzip) ACE, ARJ, CAB, DMG, ISO, LHA,
RAR, UDF, ZIPX files and more,</small><small> 200+ archive types
supported</small><small><br>
Features of PeaZip includes: </small><small> </small><small>archives
opener and extractor, </small><small>batch zipping and </small><small>extraction
                  </small><small>of multiple
archives at once, </small><small>convert zipped files, </small><small>create
self-extracting archives, split and join files,
strong encryption with two factor authentication, encrypted password
manager, </small><small>secure deletion, </small><small>find
duplicate files, </small><small>calculate hash and checksum,
export job definition as script.</small></p>
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            <td colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="vertical-align: top;"> <br>
            <h1 style="text-align: center;"><big><big><big><a
 name=".zip_extension"></a>What is ZIP file format<br>
            </big></big></big></h1>
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                    <li>
                      <p><a href="#.zip_archives">WHAT ARE ZIP FILES,
PKZIP ARCHIVE FORMAT<br>
                      </a></p>
                    </li>
                  </ul>
                  </td>
                  <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 128px;">
                  <h2><img title="What are ZIP archives"
 alt="zip extension" src="file-format/archive-format.png"
 style="width: 96px; height: 96px;" align="right"></h2>
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            <div style="text-align: left; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
            <h2><big><big><big><a name=".zip_archives"></a><a
 href="#.zip_extension">What are ZIP files, PKZip archive format</a></big></big><br>
            </big></h2>
            </div>
            <div style="text-align: left;"> </div>
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                  <h2><span style="font-weight: bold;"><img
 title="Definition of ZIP format" alt="what are zip archives"
 src="file-format/quotes.png" style="width: 32px; height: 32px;"></span></h2>
                  </td>
                  <td style="vertical-align: top; font-style: italic;"><span
 style="font-style: italic;"><a name="zip_format_specs"></a>ZIP
is the default
archive format for PeaZip free archiver, being a good, fast general
purpose archiving
format that can be handled by most archive managers - it is chosen as
default format by most other file archivers for the same reason.</span><br
 style="font-style: italic;">
                  <span style="font-style: italic;">Optimized Deflate
algorithm used in PeaZip improves ZIP format performances on modern
multi core, multi threaded machines, and provides a slightly improved
compression over classic Deflate implementation, and creates archives
retaining full
compatibility with ZIP standard.</span></td>
                  <td style="vertical-align: bottom; width: 128px;">
                  <h3><img title="ZIP file format features"
 alt="what is deflate compression algorithm"
 src="file-format/quotes-inverse.png" style="width: 32px; height: 32px;"></h3>
                  </td>
                </tr>
              </tbody>
            </table>
            <a name="what_is_zip_file"></a>ZIP extension desingates a
popular <a href="what-is-zip-file.html">archiving format</a>,
mainstream on Microsoft Windows systems.<br>
ZIP format
specifications are maintained by PKWare which
originally developed the
format as part of Phil Katz's compression utility PKZip (1989), and it
is currently undergoing evaluation for ISO/IEC standardization.<br>
Various <a href="file-split.html">file spanning</a> schemes
are employed by differnt utilities for creating split multi-volume zip
archives, most popular is raw file spanning (as inplemented in 7-Zip,
or Unix / Linux "split" command) and WinZip's custom spanning.<br>
Newer archive formats like 7Z (7-Zip / p7zip), RAR (WinRar), and ACE
(WinAce)
have gained popularity and
introduced several improvements (some of them later brought into ZIP
format) like <a href="file-compression-performances.html">better
compression ratio</a>, recovery records, <a href="encrypt-files.html">strong
file encryption</a> etc. - often at cost of inferior speed and higher
memory requirements compared to faster, lightweight Deflate compression
used in ZIp format.<br>
Anyway, ZIP format retained much of its popularity earned in several
years of widespread use due its ubiquitous support from many dedicated
software alternatives to WinZip, as well as basic built-in support
(extraction and often creation, i.e. Windows' "add to compressed
folder" command) in
most of modern operating
systems, being .zip file format specifications released in public
domain, which makes unzipping possible on almost all PC and devices.<span
 style="font-style: italic;"></span><br>
            <table style="width: 100%; text-align: left;" border="0"
 cellpadding="24" cellspacing="0">
              <tbody>
                <tr>
                  <td
 style="vertical-align: top; text-align: right; width: 128px;">
                  <h2><span style="font-weight: bold;"><img
 title="Usage recommendations for ZIP format" alt="what is a zip file"
 src="file-format/quotes.png" style="width: 32px; height: 32px;"></span></h2>
                  </td>
                  <td style="vertical-align: top; font-style: italic;">
                  <span style="font-weight: bold;">When is ZIP
format
recommended</span><br>
                  <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 238, 221);">Zip
is
a good choice anytime
it is important to keep the archive compatible with most archive
managers recipients may use, making it also an excellent choice for
content distribution, being unzip generally possible on any platform.</span>
For same reson it is also
recommended for
long
term archive / backup storage, as a such obiquitous format (with public
domain specifications) is unlike to be unsupported in any conceivable
scenario.<br>
Also, ZIP is usually significantly faster than more powerful
compression formats, both for archiving and for extraction steps.<br>
                  </td>
                  <td style="vertical-align: bottom; width: 128px;">
                  <h3><img title="ZIP file format features"
 alt="what are zipped files" src="file-format/quotes-inverse.png"
 style="width: 32px; height: 32px;"></h3>
                  </td>
                </tr>
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 cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0">
              <tbody>
                <tr>
                  <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 50%;">
                  <h2 style="font-weight: bold;">Maximum number of
files in a ZIP archive</h2>
                  <a name="max_number_of_files_in_a_zip_file"></a>ZIP
format standard limits the number of files in archive to 2^16 (64 K
files maximum), <span style="font-weight: bold;">ZIP64 </span>standard
extension, supported by PeaZip, allows 2^32 files per archive (4 G
files as maximum number)<br>
                  </td>
                  <td colspan="1" rowspan="2"
 style="vertical-align: top; width: 50%;">
                  <h2 style="font-weight: bold;">Maximum total size of
ZIP archive</h2>
                  <a name="max_zip_file_size"></a>A standard ZIP file
can be up to 2^32 bytes in size (4 gigabyte of
total size of the archive), <span style="font-weight: bold;">ZIP64 </span>standard
allows the maximum archive size of 2^64 bytes (16 exabyte of total zip
size), exceeding the current needs and limitation of most of current
implementations of filesystems.<br>
                  <a name="maximum_total_size_of_zip_files"></a>Please
note some old zip archivers supports up to 2 GB for maximum
archive size (and for max size of each input file), using a signed
integer for representing the 32-bit wide size variable.<br>
                  </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                  <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 50%;">
                  <h2><span style="font-weight: bold;">Maximum size of
each file in a ZIP archive</span></h2>
                  <a name="max_size_fo_input_file_for_zip_format"></a>ZIP
format can accept input files up to 2^32 (4 GB) in size, while <span
 style="font-weight: bold;">ZIP64 </span>can archive files as large as
2^64 bytes in size (16 exabytes,
each), far exceeding current needs and limits of common filesystems.<br>
                  </td>
                </tr>
              </tbody>
            </table>
            <br>
            <h4 style="font-weight: bold;"><big>Zip format standard and
variants
(ZIPX, JAR, CAB, IPA, APK,
COMPOUND...)</big></h4>
            <br>
ZIP compression is
quite
fast and
it's based on <span style="font-weight: bold;">Deflate </span>algorithm
(like
in GZip format); alternatively Deflate64, BZip2, LZMA, and PPMd based
compression is
possible, and supported by PeaZip.<br>
Recently WinZip (first GUI zip file utility on Microsoft Windows
platform, and still one of most popular "zipper" program) introduced
some new compression algorithms and a new
AES based encryption scheme, Advanced Encryption (AE-1, released in
2003, and AE-2 revision in 2004).<br>
            <a name="zip_aes_encryption"></a>AE-encrypted
archives as well as classic
ZipCrypto-encrypted archives are supported by PeaZip (read and write),
the application is also
capable to read PKWare's AES encrypted zip archives, standard
introduced in 2003 with PKZip 6.0 Professional Edition.<br>
            <br>
            <a name="zip_vs_zipx"></a>Since 2008 WinZip designed a new
archival format, distinguished by ZIPX extension, supporting newer
compression
and encryption features, but ZIP format retained most of its popularity
as common, "standard" way to pack and share data.<br>
            <br>
            <a name="zip_format_variants"></a>Many special-purpose
variants were built on zip format structure (Android APK,
Java JAR, Apple IPA, EPUB) or using Deflate compression (Microsoft CAB
and MS Office OPC "Open Packaging Conventions" and COMPOUND file types).<br>
For some of these file types PeaZip features a warning when trying to
edit archive
content (unless they are renamed as .zip files, and treated as plain
archives), only browsing and extraction, because file format
specifications involves to create / maintain special purpose meta-data
fields
which are out of the scope of a general-purpose file archiver - those
files should be edited with specialized programs to correctly update
required meta-data.<br>
            <br>
Read more: <a href="zip-files-utility.html">how to create, open,
extract ZIP files</a> with PeaZip free archiver<br>
            <h2><img
 title="ZIP: open archiving and compression standard"
 alt="zip file format features" src="add-to-archive.png"
 style="width: 100px; height: 45px;"></h2>
            <h3><img title="ZIP: Deflate based compression standard"
 alt="zip file format specifications" src="extract-archive.png"
 style="width: 112px; height: 45px;"></h3>
            <br>
            <a name="zip_file_format_specifications"></a>External
online resources: <a target="_blank"
 href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_%28file_format%29">ZIP file
format<img title="ZIP wiki" alt="zip file format"
 src="free-rar/extractor.png"
 style="border: 0px solid ; width: 12px; height: 10px;"></a><span
 style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>on Wikipedia, <a target="_blank"
 href="https://www.pkware.com/software/pkzip">PKWare PKZip<img
 title="PKWare" alt="PKZip" src="free-rar/extractor.png"
 style="border: 0px solid ; width: 12px; height: 10px;"></a>, <a
 target="_blank" href="http://www.zlib.net/feldspar.html">Deflate
algorithm<img title="Deflate algorithm" alt="zlib deflate"
 src="free-rar/extractor.png"
 style="border: 0px solid ; width: 12px; height: 10px;"></a> specs<br>
            <br>
            <table
 style="background-color: rgb(72, 136, 248); width: 100%; text-align: left;"
 border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1">
              <tbody>
                <tr style="color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">
                  <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
 style="vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(72, 136, 248);">
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                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 24px;">&nbsp;&nbsp;
                        <br>
                        </td>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 430px;"><br>
                        </td>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 24px;"><br>
                        </td>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 430px;"><br>
                        </td>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 24px;">&nbsp;&nbsp;
                        <br>
                        </td>
                      </tr>
                      <tr>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 24px;"><br>
                        </td>
                        <td
 style="vertical-align: top; color: rgb(245, 245, 245); width: 430px;">
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 border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
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 style="width: 50%; color: rgb(245, 245, 245); vertical-align: middle;">
                              <h3><big><big><big><big><big><a
 name="zip_file_type"></a>.ZIP</big></big></big></big></big></h3>
                              </td>
                              <td
 style="width: 50%; color: rgb(245, 245, 245); vertical-align: middle;">Phil
Katz, 1989<br>
ZIP: 64 K max number of files, 4 GB max size (archive, files)<br>
ZIP64: 2^32 max number of files, 2^64 bytes max size (archive, files)<br>
                              </td>
                            </tr>
                          </tbody>
                        </table>
                        </td>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 24px;"><br>
                        </td>
                        <td
 style="vertical-align: top; color: rgb(245, 245, 245); width: 430px;">
                        <h4><big>SPEED <img alt="zip format features"
 title="Compression speed" src="zip-files/star4p5.png"
 style="width: 80px; height: 16px;"></big></h4>
                        <a name="deflate_compression_speed"></a>Zip
format features excellent
speed either for zip and unzip operations. Deflate algorithm is light
and fast for
modern hardware, other
supported compression algorithms are more resource demanding.<br>
                        </td>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 24px;"><br>
                        </td>
                      </tr>
                      <tr>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 24px;"><br>
                        </td>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 430px;"><br>
                        </td>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 24px;"><br>
                        </td>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 430px;"><br>
                        </td>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 24px;"><br>
                        </td>
                      </tr>
                      <tr>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 24px;"><br>
                        </td>
                        <td
 style="vertical-align: top; color: rgb(245, 245, 245); width: 430px;">
                        <h4><big>COMPRESSION
RATIO <img alt="zip format specs" title="ZIP compression performances"
 src="zip-files/star2.png" style="width: 80px; height: 16px;"></big></h4>
                        <a name="zip_compression_ratio"></a>Deflate
algorithm is
inferior to modern, more powerful (and power demanding)
compressors as 7Z or RAR. Modern ZIP software supports additional
algorithms to close the gap (BZip2, PPMd, LZMA) but archives may result
unreadable for older utilities.<br>
                        </td>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 24px;"><br>
                        </td>
                        <td
 style="vertical-align: top; color: rgb(245, 245, 245); width: 430px;">
                        <h4><big>ADVANCED
OPTIONS <img alt="zip format specifications" title="ZIP format options"
 src="zip-files/star4.png" style="width: 80px; height: 16px;"></big></h4>
                        <a name="zip_files_encryption"></a>Zip format
features good advanced archiving options. Recent
standard format revisions provide efficent encryption standards and
allows archiving large files (over 4GB).
Lacks
recovery records option
available for RAR format.<br>
                        </td>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 24px;"><br>
                        </td>
                      </tr>
                      <tr>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 24px;"><br>
                        </td>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 430px;"><br>
                        </td>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 24px;"><br>
                        </td>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 430px;"><br>
                        </td>
                        <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 24px;"><br>
                        </td>
                      </tr>
                    </tbody>
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 style="background-color: rgb(240, 240, 240); width: 960px; text-align: left;"
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 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); vertical-align: top;">
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Topics and search suggestions about what is ZIP file format, PKZip
native archive extension, what are Zip files features and
specifications, Deflate&nbsp; compression, limitations,
characteristics,
maximum zip size, max number of files, advantages and disadvantages
compared to other archiving formats:<br>
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zip file format, <br>
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WinZip archive format,<br>
zip file format features, <br>
zip variants specs,<br>
                  <h4>max zip file size,</h4>
advantages using zip format,<br>
Deflate compression standard,<br>
maximum zip file size limitation,<br>
                  </td>
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 style="vertical-align: top; width: 25%; font-style: italic;"> .zip
files
specifications, <br>
faq about .zip extension,<br>
max zip format total size limit,<br>
maximum size of a zip archive,<br>
zip standard size limit, <br>
features of zip format,<br>
zip specifications,<br>
max size of each file in zip archive,<br>
what is Deflate64 algorithm,<br>
                  </td>
                  <td
 style="vertical-align: top; width: 25%; font-style: italic;">zip
compressed files, <br>
what
are zip files, <br>
zip specs,<br>
how many files can a zip contain,<br>
zip archives features,<br>
.zip extension characteristics,<br>
max size of a file in a zip archive,<br>
what is ZipCrypto encryption,<br>
4GB zip file size limit,<br>
                  </td>
                  <td
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archive format,<br>
2GB zip file size limit,<br>
zip format limitations,<br>
max number of files in a zip archive,<br>
what is zip extension,<br>
how many files can be added to zip,<br>
characteristics of zip files,<br>
what are zip archives,<br>
what are COMPOUND files </td>
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            <td style="vertical-align: top;">Tag Cloud<big><br>
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 href="zip-files-utility.html">Deflate
zip compression</a></span> <span class="wrd free-rar2"
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files utility</a></span> <span class="wrd free-rar4" id="unzip-files">
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            <span class="wrd free-rar4" id="zip-extension"> <a
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online help</a></span> <span class="wrd free-rar0"
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separately</a></span> <span class="wrd free-rar1" id="extract-selected">
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selected</a></span> <span class="wrd free-rar2"
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file format</a></span> <span class="wrd free-rar2"
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packages</a></span> <span class="wrd free-rar0" id="file-hashing"> <a
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free zip utility</a></span><br>
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archives</a></span> <span class="wrd free-rar1"
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format</a></span><br>
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image files</a></span> <span class="wrd free-rar4" id="zip-files"> <a
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file format</a></span> <span class="wrd free-rar3"
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            <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 25%;"><small> <img
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Support
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